Plastics Crisis – Bring your own…

One of the biggest ways to reduce single use plastics is to remember to ‘bring your own’ more frequently. The easy ones for me are:

Bring your own water bottle. I have three different reusable water/beverage containers – stainless (although – aargh! – with some plastic in their lids). It’s very easy to refill them; lots of places have water fountains that include a bottle filler above the fountain! I even use my water bottle when I brush my teeth in hotels – avoiding a single use plastic cup that they provide.

Bring your own bag/basket. I have a collection of bags that I use for my usual shopping (square bottoms, sturdy enough to handle heavy items, easy to keep clean). I keep a canvas bag in my car and a stuff bag in my purse for ad hoc shopping. I’ve recently added a basket to my collection but haven’t quite gotten used to it. Overall – I manage to avoid single use plastic shopping bags almost completely.

Bring your own eating utensil. I am reusing a gel pin tin for carrying silverware when I travel. If I buy a fast-food salad, I can avoid the plasticware – although I haven’t figured out how to avoid the plastic container it comes in. I generally put the used forks in the ice chest and then into the dishwasher when I get home.

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Bring your own bowl. I pack a glass container when I travel to Lewisville since the hotel breakfast has Styrofoam plates (the hot items are in metal trays, and the serving utensils are metal). I get my scrambled eggs and bacon in my own bowl…and use my own silverware too…..making the breakfast plastic free!

Bring your own cup. When I travel in the wintertime, I bring my own ceramic cup to make hot tea (with my own tea) in the hotel microwave. The cups they provide are Styrofoam or plastic-coated paper….and more hotels have put in Keurig things which have a lot of single use plastic.

Bring your own snacks. I frequently cut up veggies or make my own chicken/egg salad and put it in my own reusable (glass) container for when I am away from home at mealtime. It does mean that I am taking an ice chest as well. During the summer – I always have an ice chest when I travel to keep food and toiletries from getting too hot!

These are just a few ideas of how ‘bring your own’ can reduce your contributions to the huge piles of single use plastics.

Plastic Crisis – Lemon Juice in Glass

I recently found lemon juice in a green glass bottle – that I hadn’t found in the store before. Previously I had made a special shopping trip to a store than carried a brand of lemon juice in glass, so this new development has eliminated that special shopping trip. I like the shape and color of this packaging too.

I recently found lemon juice in a green glass bottle – that I hadn’t found in the store before. Previously I had made a special shopping trip to a store than carried a brand of lemon juice in glass, so this new development has eliminated that special shopping trip. I like the shape and color of this packaging too.

Perhaps it is an indicator that retailers/manufacturers are beginning to get the idea that food – particularly acidic or fatty foods – should not be in plastic. The lemon juice is organic too! The distributor is in the US, but the label clearly says that it is a Product of Italy. Does that mean it might have a 10% tariff on it? Why aren’t US distributors and manufacturers more engaged in the transition to better packaging?

On another front – I am slowly using up tea bags that might have plastic fibers in them. From now on, I will cut the bags open and dump the leaves in the pot. That will eliminate the burst of microplastics from the fibers when they are exposed to heat…but it is messy too since the tea leaves in the bags are so powdery; I will use a metal strainer, but it will probably will not catch them all.

It’s always challenging to really eliminate sources of microplastics!

Plastics Crisis – Too Hard?

There is an overwhelming amount of plastic in our lives and the existing options to reduce it are becoming less effective as it increases in ways we can’t control (in the air we breathe, the soil and water our food grows in, for example). It is a huge challenge that tactical decision making of government and business seems primed to ignore – deciding that the financial benefits near term of more plastics outweigh the health impacts to life on earth.

Even the most forward-looking countries/states have only taken actions that are ‘baby steps’ to address a problem that is growing by ‘giant steps.’

It is depressing to think that our lives will be less healthy…perhaps shortened…but the path we’ve taken (was it a choice or did we simply follow along with the direction the technology directed?) seems to have few forks toward a healthier planet.

In the end, the plastics crisis may turn out to be something we don’t address…that the problem we’ve created is too hard for us to resolve.

I am consciously deciding to push back on the idea that it is ‘too hard’ … to continue to look for ways to change the plastics scenario in my own life while acknowledging that there could be a point that I give up --- but that time is not today.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 20, 2026

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

06/06/2026 New York Times Looking for Love in the Big City? It’s Tough for Bowerbirds, Too. - The birds will choose artificial (plastic) accouterments over natural ones when given the choice.

06/05/2026 CNN Health Ultraprocessed food scientists say Americans are ‘fed up’ with industry and government inaction - Up to 70% of Americans want companies banned from advertising ultraprocessed foods on children’s television, while up to 87% want government safety testing for all laboratory-made chemicals long before they can be used in any food product, according to the survey published in the American Journal of Public Health. According to the US Centers for Disease and Prevention, 53% of American adults get most of their calories from ultraprocessed foods. For children ages 1 to 18, the percentage rises to 62%.

06/04/2026 The Conversation Poison or poverty: the impossible economic choices facing Ghana’s e‑waste workers - Agbogbloshie, in Ghana’s capital city, Accra, is a sprawling, open-air scrapyard located next to a lagoon and a growing informal settlement. Roughly 6,000 people dismantle, recycle and burn old and broken electronics there. Informal recycling provides an income for workers which is often relatively better than other available work. But the side effects of burning plastic and metal or using acid to extract minerals from the e-waste are devastating to human health and the natural environment.

06/05/2026 The Conversation A lot of ‘recycled’ plastic is being burned overseas – and causing widespread pollution linked to health problems - A large amount of plastic waste gets shipped overseas.  A new study analyzed what happens when plastic waste is shipped to lower- and middle-income countries, where open burning is a common way of dealing with excess waste. The study found pronounced increases in toxic air pollution. When plastic burns, it releases particularly toxic air pollutants. Fine particles can penetrate deep into people’s bodies, along with gases that include carbon monoxide, styrene gas and hydrogen cyanide. It also releases persistent organic pollutants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and dioxins. These particles and gases have been linked to health risks ranging from respiratory and cardiovascular disease to cancer and reproductive and neurological disorders. Since 2021, seven states have enacted extended producer responsibility laws focused on packaging: Maine, Oregon, California, Colorado, Minnesota, Washington and Maryland. However, it will take time to see the effects.

06/02/2026 YaleEnvironment360 Tire Pollution May Threaten Human Health, Study Finds - Tiny particles of rubber cast off by car tires, which have long been known to harm wildlife, may also pose a risk to humans.

05/06/2026 Toxic-Free Future Endocrine-Disrupting Plastic Chemicals in Breast Milk - Testing found bisphenols, melamine and related chemicals, and triclosan in breast milk samples, pointing to widespread exposure from everyday products and materials, including plastics, food-contact materials, receipts, antimicrobial treatments, and many other products. To understand the potential health risks from tire pollution, researchers exposed human immune cells to a mixture of tire-derived pollutants as well as 6PPD-quinone (one of the known pollutants from tire rubber) on its own. The mixture caused rapid cell death, among other harms.

05/18/2026 NPR Thousands of U.S. countertop workers could have damaged lungs - Occupational health experts who have petitioned California to ban quartz say this material "is too toxic to fabricate and install safely, and education and enforcement alone will not be sufficient to curtail the escalating occupational health emergency caused by this product. A few weeks ago, in the first quartz and silicosis lawsuit to come to trial outside of California, a jury in Colorado awarded damages to an injured worker - finding that actions by several companies led to his illnesses. 

05/19/2026 Planetizen Public works officials indicate alarming decline in condition of water and sewer systems - According to a survey in the National League of Cities’ 2026 Municipal Infrastructure Conditions Report, the confidence of public works and city officials in their water systems has dropped significantly, with just 39% of officials surveyed saying their own water and sewer infrastructure is 'satisfactory,' down from 82% in 2022.

06/03/2026 Artnet Crystal Bridges’s New Expansion Makes Room for More of Its Story - Crystal Bridges is now set to unveil its new 114,000-square-foot expansion on June 6–7, complemented by five acres of specially landscaped trails, gardens, a stream, and a 15,000-square-foot pond, all situated within the greater 134-acre forested park that the museum calls home. (Maybe time to make another visit the museum/Bentonville, AR).

05/28/2026 NASA A Shift in What’s Shaping U.S. Landscapes - For most of the past four decades, observations from the Landsat satellite record show that humans have dominated changes to the U.S. landscape. Recent research revealed a shift in that trend, suggesting that disasters might be catching up.

Plastics Crisis: Mowed Trash

I hate it when I don’t see a plastic snack wrapper in the grass….hear the change in the mower as it shreds the trash. It’s still macro plastic – big enough to pick up – although more work since it is in smaller pieces. I think this one was Oreo cookies. Neither my husband or I eat them, but someone did and the wrapper escaped. If it was paper I could simply leave it to decay.

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Mowing is likely one of the interim steps that is quite common with plastic trash along roadside that will become microplastics more quickly than they would have otherwise. There are people that pick-up trash along roadsides, but they probably don’t pick up any of the mowed bits.

Gleanings of the Week Ending June 13, 2026

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

06/1/2026 Science Daily Your kitchen sponge is releasing microplastics every time you wash dishes – Use sponges with lower plastic (or no plastic) content! Using less water for dishes has and even greater environmental impact.

05/30/2026 Clean Technica Illinois First Great Lakes State to Enact Plastic Pellet Pollution Law - Just days before the end of the 2026 legislative session, the Illinois state legislature passed HB4418, which defines pre-production plastic pellets as a pollutant and gives the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency the authority to establish policies to prevent them from being released into the environment. eople complain about government overreach and faceless bureaucrats, but the truth is that without legislation such as this and governmental organizations like the Illinois EPA to enforce it, the world would be a much more toxic and dangerous place. It is long past time to stop giving polluters a free pass so they can maximize their profits.

05/11/2026 RNZ Is it really possible to live a plastic-free life? - Our lives are riddled with plastic, and growing evidence suggests it is affecting our health in myriad ways. (New Zealand)

04/27/2026 Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology Endocrine-disrupting chemicals in breast milk and early life exposure for infants in the United States – Melamine, cyanuric acid, BPA, BPS, and triclosan were detected with high frequency in breast milk samples in the study, and our study suggests that breast milk is an important exposure pathway for these chemicals among nursing infants. Given the importance of breastfeeding for infant health, our study highlights the need to investigate potential health effects of these chronic exposures.

04/26/2026 Earth.com Plastics are entering food crops and stunting their growth - Farmers, waste managers, and regulators now face a harder truth: plastic in soil can slow crops, gather around roots, and enter plants. The next step is tracing whether weathered nanoplastics reach edible tissues at harvest and deciding which plastic inputs should be cut first.

04/02/2026 Medical Xpress Seven days without plastic contact slashes phthalates and bisphenols in body – A clinical trial investigating levels of plastic chemicals in the human body has found that a low-plastic diet could be a fast and effective way to reduce exposure. (Australia)

05/31/2026 The Conversation Trees and greenery can cool cities by as much as 18°C – but only if it’s the right type - Field measurements from Melbourne, Munich and Hong Kong were compared to test how different kinds of urban planting changed the heat people experience outdoors. Layered vegetation – where trees are combined with shrubs and ground cover – often cooled cities more effectively than trees alone. We also found local climate and street design strongly shaped whether greening worked well. Cities need planting strategies tailored to local conditions rather than universal greening formulas. In parks and open green spaces, layered vegetation can provide strong cooling while also supporting biodiversity. In dense streets, planners may need to balance shade with ventilation.

05/28/2026 My Modern Met Hand-Colored Photos From 19th-Century Japan Offer a Glimpse of Traditional Life - Photography arrived in Japan very early—a little less than a decade after it was invented in Europe. Throughout the 1850s, as Japan opened up to foreigners, the images from this time capture not only a nearly forgotten moment in history but also a rare transitional time in which traditional Japanese life was being affected by rapid modernization.

05/20/2026 BBC Chile's Atacama Desert is one of the darkest places on Earth. But now the light is intruding - The battle against encroaching artificial light in the Atacama is a microcosm of a global problem. As electric bulbs have proliferated, around 80% of Earth's population now lives under light-polluted skies. A recent study of star visibility found that, on average globally, the sky brightened due to light pollution by almost 10% a year between 2011-2022. If a person could see 250 stars at the start of the period, the researchers found, they would only spot 100 by the end.

5/28/2026 Smithsonian Magazine Giant, Destructive Hail Is Becoming More Common with Climate Change - A new study finds that these giant hailstones will become more common as the climate warms from human-caused carbon emissions. In models of predicted future warming, the researchers found that the frequency of hail larger than a marble will increase 47 percent by 2100 in a worst-case scenario. Even in a more optimistic model of future climate change, the potential for storms producing giant hail will rise 38 percent.

Plastics Crisis – Presentation to Master Gardeners

June is a popular month for conferences this year. The Missouri Master Gardener conference was this weekend, and I did an hour-long presentation on Plastics/Microplastics on Saturday!

The ‘room’ was a curtained off corner of a ballroom! I arrived early since I was using my own Mac for the slideshow and I wanted to make sure it connected with the AV system in the room. The connection was easy (HDMI) but the set up was awkward with a table for the laptop against the same wall as the screen. I managed.

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There were twelve people in the audience….they all seemed to be very engaged and the 20 minutes I had reserved for questions and discussion was filled with great interactions and afterward I got 2 master naturalists requests (one wanting to get on the core training contact list and another wanted to transition from another chapter to the Springfield one)….and then there was person that wants to write an article about my topic for a Missouri journal.  It was an hour well spent! It occurred to me that the charts I prepared for this talk will just be a baseline that I will tweak for all my subsequent presentations; there is new information coming out all the time and I will always add charts to focus on the aspects of microplastics that would be of most interest to the particular audience (in this case it was gardeners).

The only handout I had was my ‘reduce your microplastic exposure’ mind map and several people picked one up as the presentation time ended. I had put some blank paper in with the mind map pages too…and am glad I did – since that is how I got contact info for follow-up!

This is my first hour long presentation in a long time. I did a few shorter ones in Maryland, but they were usually associated with a hike (searching for skunk cabbage is one I remember) or an activity (creating Zentangle tiles).  It was a skill that I used frequently during my career…but that frequency ended 14 years ago. Based on the way I felt during the presentation and reaction from the audience, it is a skill I have easily refreshed.

Plastics Crisis – Forever Plastics (poem)

Ronald Carson’s Forever Plastics poem is worth a look…I keep coming back to read it again to help shift my perspective…to enable better communication about the looming ramifications of our current (and projected) plastics usage.

 He says: “In this poem, I wanted plastics to speak in the first-person plural, tracing the path from postwar convenience to biological saturation, where the environment is no longer outside us but lodged within us.”

 The last stanza sums is up:

We are the heirloom you did not ask for, 
the inheritance that cannot be refused, 
the future fossil of your present, 
already here.

 See the whole poem here.

Plastics Crisis – 10 Visions

A lot of work now to reduce plastics is ‘baby steps’ because we must start somewhere. We need some successes to encourage more people to care about the impact of plastics on ourselves and all living things on our planet – to get the ball rolling to push back on the laissez-faire approach toward the plastic producers that seems to be the status quo around the world. We know that it is an uphill effort and will take a lot more people becoming alarmed/getting involved.

I’ve been thinking recently about what I would like to see beyond ‘baby steps’…and have picked 10 ‘visions’ to share in this week’s Plastic Crisis post.

1. Plastic-Free labeling on food/cosmetic packaging is common – and plastic-free products are widely available. Remaining plastic packaging is required to be free of toxic chemicals particularly endocrine disrupting chemicals.

2. Tea bags, cans, and snack wrappers don’t contain plastic and there are no single-use plastic shopping bags.

3. Plastic bottles for food and cosmetics are phased out…replaced with glass or distributed in dry form and packaged in paper/cardboard.

4. Biodegradable tires have been developed – created without toxic biproducts and recycled at the end of life into new tires. Fragments from tire wear biodegrade in the environment.

5. Plastic producers are paying for plastic waste disposal (using less toxic methods than available in 2025…i.e. not releasing toxic chemicals into the air, water, soil…so no landfill or burning, etc.)

6. Mining of landfill material from high plastic times is beginning to reduce the ‘time bomb’ toxicity of the plastic era.

7. Synthetic carpets and plastic/vinyl flooring are replaced with biodegradable materials.

8. Water treatment plants filter out most microplastics …and technology is being developed to reduce nano-plastic particles as well.   

9. The perception of plastic is ‘toxic’ rather than ‘clean/sterile’ as it was historically.

10. Chemicals are considered toxic to humans until proven safe. There will be no more ‘forever’ chemicals that are new and heavily used….and then discovered to be toxic.

Gleanings of the Week Ending May 23, 2026

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

05/10/26 Poets.org Forever Plastics – A poem by Ronald Carson. He says “In this poem, I wanted plastics to speak in the first-person plural, tracing the path from postwar convenience to biological saturation, where the environment is no longer outside us but lodged within us.”

04/22/2026 The New York Times You Paid to Have Old Clothes Recycled. Here’s What That Really Means. - Collection services offer convenience, but most garments are shredded into low-grade stuffing or sent abroad to an uncertain fate. The most important thing, experts and environmental activists say, is to buy less in the first place. It’s easier to deal with clothes responsibly if there are fewer of them to begin with.

05/7/2026 Super Age Life Expectancy Gains Are Slowing. Your Choices Are More Important Than Ever - The future of longevity will most likely be shaped less by sweeping public health revolutions and more by targeted, personalized strategies: slowing biological aging, optimizing midlife health, and extending the years we remain active, engaged, and independent.

05/12/2026 Planetizen 16% of roads that received federal funds remain in poor condition - State DOTs are spending most of that money on highway expansions instead of repair and maintenance work. And "Because increasingly lax reporting standards conceal broken roads from public view, and DOTs routinely mis-categorize expensive expansion projects as simple 'maintenance' or lump them into a mysterious 'other' category, Transportation for America suspects the national highway network is actually even more drastically overbuilt than it appears on paper."

05/11/2026 I’m Plastic Free How to Reduce Microplastics Exposure: The Ultimate Guide & Checklist - This guide breaks down exactly how microplastics enter your system, and provides a practical, but very thorough, science-backed checklist to reduce your exposure across your home, diet, and daily habits.

05/12/2026 BBC 'Fatbergs' are taking over city sewers - scientists are fighting back - Reeking coagulations of grease and debris are clotting sewers around the world on a colossal scale. Cities are deploying new technologies to control this modern menace. New York City – where 40% of sewer backups are due to grease – spends around $18.8m annually degreasing and removing blockages from the sewers beneath its streets. 

5/12/2026 National Parks Traveler Musings About the Parks | Things I Worry About – A list from Kurt Rapanshek. He ends the post this way: “Without question, there are many, many things that are uplifting about exploring the National Park System. But if the Park Service truly is going to preserve these places and their natural resources for future generations, it really needs a lot more help from Congress and presidential administrations.”

5/11/2026 Smithsonian Magazine See 15 Stunning Images That Won the German Society for Nature Photography’s Annual Contest – Beautiful and thought-provoking images.

05/06/2026 YaleEnvironment360 Airborne Microplastics May Be Warming the Planet - Tiny particles of plastic amassing in the atmosphere may be intensifying warming. Darker bits of plastic are absorbing heat. And even though lighter particles are reflecting sunlight, with a cooling influence, in the aggregate microplastics are having a warming effect. The warming impact is tiny, far less than the impact of carbon dioxide emissions, and only a fraction of the impact of soot. The microplastic emissions produced globally each year have roughly the same warming effect as running 200 coal power plants for that year….but more study is needed

05/04/2026 CNN The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a plastic trash nightmare. It could also be part of a much bigger, hidden problem - The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a significant source of airborne microplastics and nanoplastics, but there are many other places where tiny plastic particles can be whipped up into the skies, including from landfills, roadside litter and car tires. Colored plastics, especially red, yellow, blue and black, absorbed around 75 times more light than pristine, non-pigmented plastics.

05/10/2026 Science Daily Antarctica is melting from below and scientists say it’s worse than expected - Deep beneath floating ice shelves, long channels carved into the ice appear to trap warmer ocean water, dramatically speeding up melting from below. Even regions of East Antarctica once considered relatively stable may be far more vulnerable than scientists realized. Researchers warn that current climate models may be missing this dangerous process entirely, meaning future sea level rise could be underestimated.

Plastics Crisis – Plastic and Conservation After School Program

I participated in a program about plastics and conservation for an after-school program at an area school. The grade range for the 43 participants was first through eighth grade. We did the program twice…to make the group size more management for the activities.

The gym was equipped with a projector for our short slide show to set the stage (featured a short video of animals in Missouri, a beautiful view of the Missouri river/a view of the river bank full of plastic waste), a little about how plastic is produced, and a picture of peanut the turtle (a turtle rescued with band of plastic around its middle deforming its shell).

There were two activities that the students rotated through: 1) a web game where a ball of yarn was thrown to participants in a circle representing parts of a Missouri ecosystem  to help the students visualize what happens as plastic impacts a web of life– usually in negative way and 2) looking at a piece of synthetic fabric under a microscope and talking more how many things we use every day are plastic and are shedding tiny pieces as we wear them…and launder them.

The whole group was back together for the last activity. There was a bin of water to represent a river and a small empty bin to represent a landfill. Every 30 seconds another small bin of trash was dumped into the ‘river’….and there was an effort to scoop it up and put it in the ‘landfill.’ It didn’t take long before 1) the landfill was overflowing and 2) there were still some trash in the river that we didn’t get out fast enough!

As we summed up, we asked what kinds of things they could do to reduce plastics…lots of interesting ideas emerged. When we asked if they thought their school could try a plastic free lunch day next school year …they were enthusiastic. Some of them said they should try a week or a month plastic free. It might not be as hard for their school since the cafeteria has reusable items. They agreed that those that brought their lunch might need to rethink small plastic bags!

At the end we were handed Thank You notes the children had made!

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Plastics Crisis – Earth Day Music Festival

My second Earth Day Festival for 2026 was Springfield’s Earth Day Music Festival - a plastic-free, leave-no-waste sustainability-driven live music festival. For Beyond Plastics Ozarks, it was our first tabling event. Our goal was to talk to festival goers about reducing plastics in tangible ways…hand out donated reusable bags to those willing to use them rather than taking the store-provided single use plastic bags…and develop a list of people willing to join our efforts.

I started the day early since I was bringing the materials for the table: tables, banner, camp chairs, umbrella with weighted base (and extra weights), info sheets from Show-me Less Plastic, and a mind map I created for what individuals can start doing at home. I had started adding rocks to make sure papers did not blow away but, once I looked at the forecast and saw it was going to be very breezy, I added decorative bookends to the bins….and there were 55 donated bags of various sizes/colors to hand out. The collapsible wagon I had recently purchased from Costco held everything which meant I didn’t have to carry anything more than a few steps. I was at the venue early enough to park in a nearby garage so I simply loaded my wagon after I parked and walked across the street with it rather than unload at the curb before I parked the car.

Our assigned space was under a tree! I had an umbrella that I set up for a few hours but took it down after the wind got too gusty; the tree provided plenty of shade. Other than the wind gusts, the weather was perfect for the festival.

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The rocks and bookends worked great. After I got them arranged well, there were no papers blowing from our table. The indoor plants vendor next door was challenged to keep smaller plants on the shelves. They kept blowing off and landing in our booth! A booth further down that was doing a craft (nature stamps on cards) occasionally had cards flying.

I was at the table most of the time from about 9:30 to 6…setting up initially for the festival to open at 11…and packing up at 6 when the evening musicians were just setting up. I appreciated being able to leave before the crowds…just as I had arrived before the crowds.

It was a good first tabling – over 100 people stopped to talk and over 25 people indicated there were interested in learning more. Of course – this event being plastic free was probably a friendlier audience than we will find generally. I learned more about tabling on a windy day (bookends worked great…the umbrella did not)…and that the wagon was a great purchase for this type of event.

I did browse the other tables at mid-day…came home with a free smooth sumac to plant in a back corner of my yard. Lunch was 3 tacos in the compostable container from one of the food trucks. I refilled my water bottle at the water wagon a few times! Overall – a productive day for Beyond Plastics Ozarks…and enjoyable too with music and dancing just down the hill for our booth.

Plastics Crisis – Acrylic hats/sweaters

When I was rearranging my closet for the season (putting away winter clothes and getting out summer clothes), I decided to donate my fuzzy acrylics rather than saving them for next winter. They are the items in my wardrobe that shed the most plastic fibers even though I wash them in cold water in a laundry bag and air dry them flat. The items were in two categories – sweaters and a slouch hat that I crocheted recently from a skein of acrylic yard I bought years ago.

Both items can be replaced with similar items made with natural fibers next winter. They might be a bit more expensive, but my clothes tend to last a long time - so it is worth it  to buy wool, silk, or cotton sweaters…and it is easy to find cotton crochet thread/yarns for making slouch hats!

Plastic Crisis - Clamshells

My husband said he wanted one serving of carrot cake for his birthday….and he didn’t want to go to a restaurant to get it. So - I opted to buy 2 pieces at the grocery store rather than making a cake at home and having a lot to freeze; it would take months for us to finish. I suspected that the only offering the grocery store would have would be packaged in a plastic clamshell – single use and not recyclable.

The cake was not going to be heated in the plastic, and it was unlikely that the container and cake had been heated together prior to me buying it…. better than a case of bottled water which you never know what happened to it along the way.

The clamshells are popular with stores because they are cheap and don’t weigh much; the open clamshells stack so they take less space. Customers probably appreciate being able to see the condition of the cake through the container.

Before plastic, pieces of cake were put in white boxes that were flat then formed into a box immediately before they were used. It was usually in a bakery setting rather than a large grocery store and the customer watched the cake being placed in the box. It required a clerk to be at the counter all the time…so more labor intensive…but also more social interaction. Bakeries often developed a familiarity with their customers that is entirely missing in the modern grocery store.

What is the Beyond plastic option? Right now, the only one might be making the cake yourself from ingredients that can often be purchased not in plastic (flour, eggs, vanilla, etc.) even though many grocery stores only have carrots in plastic these days. Alternatively – the grocery stores need to be searching for a non-plastic solution to reduce the burden on landfills and avoid causing more health impacts to ourselves and wildlife from plastic accumulation in our environment.

Plastics Crisis – Events in April

There seems to be a lot of plastic related activities on my calendar for April.

Beyond Plastics Ozarks will have a table at the Earth Day Music Fest in Springfield later in the month…lots of prep and logistics to work through between now and the event. Info sheets are the easy items …we are developing things to draw people to the table (maybe a plastic trash monster…maybe a big BYOB (standing for “Bring Your Own Bag”!) and then handing out reusable bags collected from various places or maybe having a ‘craft’ making a reusable bag from an old t-shirt).

There will also be a day with Stream Teams United at the state capitol to learn more of the legislative process and perhaps meet our state Representatives/Senators. I’ve never done anything like this before so it will be a learning experience. There are several plastic related bills that have been proposed in this session.

In early May we have an after school program for K-5 students at a smaller town school district northeast of Springfield. The educator that works with the Show-me Less Plastic project is helping with it. It should be a fun day for us and the students.

There is still a big challenge of getting more people actively engaged. There seem to be many people interested but we are yet not connecting with people that want to go beyond individual action at this point.

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 28, 2026

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

3/23/2026 Washington Post What an oncologist wants you to know about environmental cancer risks - Given what we know about how microplastics can cause damage in the body, the increase in early onset colorectal cancer in the U.S. and the similarities in timing between the increase in cancer rates and the rapid increase in microplastics in the environment, many experts suspect that microplastics are a risk.

3/14/2026 BBC The strange deep-sea creatures that eat whales - Whales usually die far out to sea, scattered along their often vast migration paths. t first, the carcass may float as the gases inside make it swell up like a balloon. Then the whale sinks – through the sunlight, twilight and midnight zones – eventually reaching the darkness of the abyss, its final resting place. In death, the whale gives life, becoming an immense island of food.

3/16/2026 MSN Couples with infertility 'detox' from plastic to get pregnant in new Netflix doc. Does it work? - A new Netflix documentary called "The Plastic Detox" is a sobering look at all the ways that plastic harms our bodies and the planet — especially our reproductive health. Shanna Swan, Ph.D., a professor at Mount Sinai in New York City, is one of the prominent figures sounding the alarm on the effects of environmental pollutants on fertility. For the documentary, she worked with five couples who'd been struggling to get pregnant for years without a medical explanation. The goal? To reduce their exposure to plastics to see if they could conceive. In the end of the documentary, it's revealed three of the couples had gotten pregnant, and one was expecting again. The results were also published in a study in the journal Toxins on March 16.

3/20/2026 Yale Environment 360 In Mexican Forests, Monarch Butterflies Halt Their Decline - For the past quarter century, the future of monarch butterflies has looked dire, with these iconic American insects flitting toward extinction. Now, however, there is at least a small reason for hope: New data from WWF Mexico, a large conservation group, offers further evidence that the decline of eastern monarchs — the world’s largest population — has stopped, even as the insects face worsening threats across their range.

3/16/2026 Our World in Data Why cheap waste management is key to stopping plastic pollution – I was disappointed in this article. They completely miss the issue of food packaged and heated in plastic. Yes – that plastic packaging does not get loose in the environment but the microplastics (and chemicals) that leach into food gets into our bodies. And the leachate coming off lined landfills in countries with good waste management systems includes microplastics that the sewage treatment plants don’t take out before the liquid is released back into streams….and that will continue to happen for many years to come. And what happens when the liners of the landfills begin to break down and the leachate goes more directly into the environment. The answer in probably not cheap waste management…we need to be look at less waste – particularly less plastic waste.

2/17/2026 NASA Winds Whip Up Fires and Dust on the Southern Plains – This satellite image is from mid-February but I noticed smoke in the air as I drove on I-44 east of Tulsa last weekend! I don’t know if it was wildfires or controlled burns…but I was glad I had a portable air purifier in my car!

3/21/2026 I’m Plastic Free 9 Essential Ways to Reduce Plastic Waste on Your 2026 Travels – I would add a reusable bowl/plate for hotel breakfasts (along with cutlery…I take stainless steel cutlery since I have an extra set…and simply clean then to reuse…I have a tin that keeps them together).

3/18/2026 Smithsonian Magazine Cannibalistic Blue Crabs Are Eating Their Younger Peers in Part of the Chesapeake Bay - Young blue crabs find refuge from many predators in the mid-salinity waters of some spots along the Chesapeake Bay. But there, they face another threat: Getting eaten by their older peers.

3/16/2026 National Parks Traveler What It Takes to Clean a Yellowstone Hot Spring - Cleaning hot springs is hard work! Some remediations, like the Grand Prismatic Overlook trail spring, require shovels, strainers, and grabber tools. The cleaning of Solitary Geyser, however, required a hook with a 16-foot extendable handle to remove large objects within the interior parts of the pool and hand rakes to collect the hundreds of wood splinters that had been thrown into the splash basins around the pool margin.

3/13/2026 Science Daily Microplastics may be quietly damaging your brain and fueling Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s - Researchers identified five key biological pathways that may allow microplastics to harm the brain. These include activating immune cells, increasing oxidative stress, disrupting the blood-brain barrier, interfering with mitochondria, and damaging neurons. The review also describes how microplastics might contribute to specific neurodegenerative diseases. In Alzheimer's disease, they may promote the buildup of beta-amyloid and tau proteins. In Parkinson's disease, they could encourage aggregation of α-Synuclein and harm dopaminergic neurons. Additional studies are needed to confirm a direct causal link. Even so, the researchers recommend practical steps to reduce everyday exposure. We need to change our habits and use less plastic. Steer clear of plastic containers and plastic cutting boards, don't use the dryer, choose natural fibers instead of synthetic ones and eat less processed and packaged foods.

Plastic Crisis – Altered Purchasing

One way to have less plastic in the environment in the large term is to alter purchasing habits. I am noticing that I’ve applied what I’m learning about plastics to make some changes over the past few months…and I hope others will be thinking along the same lines. Our purchases are a signal to retailers; it would be great if enough people changed some of their purchasing habits enough for the retailers to take note and make some changes of their own!

I find myself looking much more closely when I shop….and skewing toward a no-plastic or less plastic option. I provide some examples and my rationale below.

For example – when I was looking for tea, I realized that there was a tin with loose tea on the shelf and I bought it. I’m still going to finish off the tea bags I have (paper…but could have plastic filaments or glue) but will stop buying other kinds of tea unless they somehow start certifying that they are plastic free.

Another example was a summer house dress. I checked the fiber content, and it was 100% cotton. I would not have purchased it otherwise! Yes – I still have a lot of synthetic fabrics in my closet that I will continue wearing until they are worn out– but I am buying clothes made with natural fiber fabric going forward.

There is sometimes a conflict between less plastic packaging and organic vegetables. One example from where I shop is bell peppers. The organic bell peppers come in plastic packaging. The non-organic peppers are offered either bulk (i.e. no plastic packaging) or in plastic packaging. Bell peppers are one of Consumer Reports’ 6 Fruits and Vegetables Loaded with Pesticides so I am opting for the organic ones even though they are in plastic packaging. This is a case where pesticide concern is high enough to skew toward organic. The organic bell peppers packaged in plastic packaging have probably not been exposed to heat…and I can remove the packaging as soon as I get them home. I still don’t like the packaging…and would prefer an option at the store for organic peppers without any packaging.

Some plastic packaging is more toxic – like Styrofoam. I buy frozen chicken breasts rather than fresh. Yes - they are in a plastic bag…but I’ve eliminated the Styrofoam tray and plastic wrap. I have no waste with the frozen and the bag has obviously never been exposed to heat. I thaw the chicken as I need it – in a glass container.

I will not buy plastic wrap again. I’ll use foil or parchment paper or a container with a lid rather than plastic wrap!

These are just a few examples….there will be many more I am sure. It would be easier if more of what I buy was offered in a non-plastic package!

Gleanings of the Week Ending March 14, 2026

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

2/25/2026 The Scientist Forever Chemicals May Accelerate Aging in Middle-Aged Men - The team detected the PFAS perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA) and perfluorooctanesulfonamide (PFOSA) in 95 percent of the participants. PFNA and PFOSA, both invented in the middle of the 20th century, are still used widely today in consumer products designed to be stain-, grease-, and water-repellent. To reduce risk, individuals can try to limit their consumption of packaged foods and avoid microwaving fast-food containers. Looking ahead, we are actively modeling how PFAS interacts with other common pollutants, as we need to understand the cumulative health risks of these chemical mixtures

3/1/2026 BBC Can ‘friction-maxxing’ fix your focus? - While modern technology can streamline day-to-day life, making everything from dating to food delivery more efficient, it may come at a cost: early data suggests that our attention span may be shortening, critical thinking capabilities weakening, emotional intelligence fading, and spatial memory getting worse as we offload human tasks to our devices. Analogue hobbies such as crafting, gardening or reading – which involve friction as opposed to scrolling or streaming – can act as "active meditation", calming the mind and reducing stress. One 2024 study of more than 7,000 adults living in England found that those who engaged in crafting or the creative arts were more likely to report significantly higher life satisfaction, a greater sense that life is worthwhile and increased happiness. 

2/24/2025 The New York Times Plastic, Plastic Everywhere - Peak oil may be on the horizon. But peak plastic is nowhere in sight. In a new book, “Plastic Inc.,” the journalist Beth Gardiner digs into an industry that mostly flies below the radar but has huge impacts on human health, environmental pollution and global warming.

3/5/2026 Yale 360 Species Slowdown: Is Nature’s Ability to Self-Repair Stalling? - When scientists recently analyzed hundreds of studies of ecosystems, they were surprised to see a marked slowing in the rate of species turnover. If new species don’t replace old ones, they say, ecosystems may have less flexibility to respond to habitat loss and climate change.

2/28/2026 KCTV A ban on mini liquor bottle sales in five Kansas City neighborhoods officially introduced - Mayor Quinton Lucas and Councilwoman Melissa Robinson officially introduced an ordinance Thursday that would ban the sale of certain single-serve alcohol products in five Kansas City neighborhoods - — areas the city said have documented public safety concerns and recurring quality-of-life complaints from residents.

3/5/2026 The Conversation Choosing to buy organic food depends more on trust than taste - Organic labels work only when the system behind them is trusted. This has important implications at a time when food prices are rising and trust in public institutions is under pressure in many countries.

2/2/2026 Washington Post Baggies, retainers and more: 5 microplastics questions, answered - If you only have the bandwidth for a few battles, heating food in plastic is the bigger front. Most experts agree that ultra-processed foods are likely the biggest source overall in our diets. Food that comes packaged in plastic is obvious, but there are exposures during industrial processing that we don’t see. That’s one more reason to lean toward whole foods when you can.

3/4/2026 National Parks Traveler Study Finds Bird Populations Are In Decline As Panel Considers Weakening Key Act - Bird populations are in decline, with billions fewer birds are flying through North America compared to a decade ago, according to a study published in February 2026. The researchers found that about half of the 261 species analyzed showed significant declines from 1987 to 2021, and a quarter showed accelerating declines. The study points out that the declines are primarily because of high-intensity agriculture and warming temperatures. The findings come as a congressional panel is holding a hearing to consider weakening the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Extinction starts with declines like these, and birds are often the indicators that our environment is too toxic to support other life.

3/4/2026 Science Daily Millions with joint pain and osteoarthritis are missing the most powerful treatment - Despite affecting nearly 600 million people worldwide — and potentially a billion by 2050 — the most powerful treatment isn’t surgery or medication. It’s exercise.

2/26/2026 Canary Media Balcony solar is taking state legislatures by storm - Plug-in solar is already booming in Europe. As many as 4 million households in Germany have installed the systems, which people can order through Ikea. 28 states and D.C. are considering plug-in solar bills.

Plastic Crisis - Actions at the Community Level – February 2026

At the end of January, it seemed like my community level activities about plastics had started out at a bit faster than I anticipated….and I wondered if it would continue. February was a month of preparation for things that would happen in April and beyond; I didn’t anticipate that there would be plastic-related legislation to begin tracking too!  

There currently are two plastic-related bills filed in the Missouri House. Neither is on the House calendar but they both had ‘read second time’ action in February:

• HB 3193 - Phases out the use of single-use plastic products at Missouri State Parks and Historic Sites

• HB 3357 - Prohibits the sale of intravenous solution containers and intravenous tubing products intentionally made with DEHP

I will be following both; it will be my first experience with tracking something through the Missouri legislative process. Beyond Plastics Ozarks will have to decide how we want to include information about these in upcoming outreach activities.

Beyond Plastics Ozarks’ first tabling - outreach event will be in April – associated with an Earth Day music festival. I’ve requested copies of information sheets from Show-me Less Plastic and have ideas for additional handouts that are more locally focused. We’ll probably make a sign to advertise our ‘bring your own bag (BYOB)’ initiative that we’ll start at local farmer’s markets. I’m collecting rocks to keep handout pages secure on the table even if it is breezy.

I’ve been asked to do a presentation at the state conference for Master Gardeners on microplastics in June. I’ve gathered some presentation materials from others and will facilitate a brainstorming session that will develop some gardener specific ideas on reducing microplastics.

Having a plastics movie showing and lining up tabling at farmer’s markets is still on the Beyond Plastics Ozarks ‘to do’ list. It looks like the first 6 months of 2026 are going to be busy!

Plastic Crisis: Creating a ‘Reduce your Microplastic Exposure’ Mind Map

One of the first mind maps I worked on after purchasing the MindNode app was about reducing microplastic exposure. It was a good way to collect my thoughts and learn the tool. I am gearing up for spring and early summer tabling and talks on plastics – feeling the need to get organized and hone the way I deliver the message!

The mind map is still a work in progress – I still don’t have anything about household cleaners or water filtering (for drinking and maybe for shower). The things I feel are the biggest issues (heat/plastic/food and synthetic textiles) are there, but they may get more detail over time. I haven’t figured out where to put ditching the plastic cutting board. My goal is to create one page mind maps on various perspectives of the plastics issue and either use them directly as conversation starters or translate them into other forms for presentation.

It feels good to be creating mind maps again and I like MindNode. Years ago – during my career (over 15 years ago) – I created a lot of mind maps using MindManager but it is now too expensive for individuals (and overly complex for what I need)!